The Multimodal Aspects and the Scope of Application of the Emerging Rotterdam Rules
(2009)Department of Law
- Abstract
- Considering the urgency in uniformity and harmonization of existing law relating to carriage of goods by sea, the Comité Maritime International (CMI) initiated a joint project with UNCITRAL to achieve more uniformity and to replace the Hague, Hague-Visby and Hamburg Rules which are outdated by now and cannot fully satisfy the needs of modern multimodal transport. The result of this joint project became the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 11 December 2008 and is going to be signed on 23 September 2009 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and therefore, the Convention to be known as "&semicThe Rotterdam Rules"&semic. Various attempts have... (More)
- Considering the urgency in uniformity and harmonization of existing law relating to carriage of goods by sea, the Comité Maritime International (CMI) initiated a joint project with UNCITRAL to achieve more uniformity and to replace the Hague, Hague-Visby and Hamburg Rules which are outdated by now and cannot fully satisfy the needs of modern multimodal transport. The result of this joint project became the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 11 December 2008 and is going to be signed on 23 September 2009 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and therefore, the Convention to be known as "&semicThe Rotterdam Rules"&semic. Various attempts have been made to create an international legal instrument to regulate this type of carriage but were not successful enough. Therefore, it is obvious this Convention is absolutely necessary in the era of new technologies, electronic business and development of logistics. The new Convention has a very wide scope of application covering issues not previously covered by any international convention on maritime law, such as electronic communication, arbitration and some others. The new Convention is intended to have a door-to-door coverage but only if there is an international sea leg. Many claim that this requirement makes the Convention only partly multimodal or maritime plus. However, the majority of carriages of goods are carried out by sea but also including the transportation that precede and follow the sea carriage. The question whether it is successful regardless the fact it is not truly multimodal worrying the maritime transport community. Another important issue is the scope of application of the future Convention and its possible conflicts with other unimodal conventions that are already in force. Several provisions are dealing with those issues. Whether they solve the problem of conflicts of conventions and whether a network liability regime is a possible solution will be looked at in this Master Thesis. Some States have adopted their own national laws in regard to multimodal transportation due to lack of international instrument and there are currently two regional drafts that aim to regulate the similar subject matter as the new Convention by this posing a threat to the uniformity desired. The suggestions to adopt two different instruments: a new carriage of goods by sea convention and a multimodal convention, covering all combinations of modes might be preferable but sound unrealistic at least in few decades. There is a strong doubt that the international shipping community would be willing to start everything from the beginning. In a worse scenario, the regional solutions will start to exist and in that case, the goal for uniformity of the law of carriage of goods by sea will remain unrealisable. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1555385
- author
- Dobyko, Olena
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2009
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Maritime Law
- language
- English
- id
- 1555385
- date added to LUP
- 2010-03-08 15:23:36
- date last changed
- 2010-03-08 15:23:36
@misc{1555385,
abstract = {{Considering the urgency in uniformity and harmonization of existing law relating to carriage of goods by sea, the Comité Maritime International (CMI) initiated a joint project with UNCITRAL to achieve more uniformity and to replace the Hague, Hague-Visby and Hamburg Rules which are outdated by now and cannot fully satisfy the needs of modern multimodal transport. The result of this joint project became the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 11 December 2008 and is going to be signed on 23 September 2009 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and therefore, the Convention to be known as "&semicThe Rotterdam Rules"&semic. Various attempts have been made to create an international legal instrument to regulate this type of carriage but were not successful enough. Therefore, it is obvious this Convention is absolutely necessary in the era of new technologies, electronic business and development of logistics. The new Convention has a very wide scope of application covering issues not previously covered by any international convention on maritime law, such as electronic communication, arbitration and some others. The new Convention is intended to have a door-to-door coverage but only if there is an international sea leg. Many claim that this requirement makes the Convention only partly multimodal or maritime plus. However, the majority of carriages of goods are carried out by sea but also including the transportation that precede and follow the sea carriage. The question whether it is successful regardless the fact it is not truly multimodal worrying the maritime transport community. Another important issue is the scope of application of the future Convention and its possible conflicts with other unimodal conventions that are already in force. Several provisions are dealing with those issues. Whether they solve the problem of conflicts of conventions and whether a network liability regime is a possible solution will be looked at in this Master Thesis. Some States have adopted their own national laws in regard to multimodal transportation due to lack of international instrument and there are currently two regional drafts that aim to regulate the similar subject matter as the new Convention by this posing a threat to the uniformity desired. The suggestions to adopt two different instruments: a new carriage of goods by sea convention and a multimodal convention, covering all combinations of modes might be preferable but sound unrealistic at least in few decades. There is a strong doubt that the international shipping community would be willing to start everything from the beginning. In a worse scenario, the regional solutions will start to exist and in that case, the goal for uniformity of the law of carriage of goods by sea will remain unrealisable.}},
author = {{Dobyko, Olena}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The Multimodal Aspects and the Scope of Application of the Emerging Rotterdam Rules}},
year = {{2009}},
}